Excel: Edit the XML inside an XLSX file

Solution 1:

How are you going about doing the editing? I would suggest not fully extracting the file, but instead, just opening the archive in 7-zip. Then, find the file you want to edit, choose "edit", then save it and 7-zip should automatically replace it in the archive. In the past when I've done this, Excel has then opened it up without any trouble, but when actually extracting then recompressing it, I've had issues.

Solution 2:

You definitely should be able to edit the XML in the archive without problems. I have done that several times with the xl\comments1.xml file and Excel opened it without any problems.

I used 7-zip and Notepad++. Perhaps your editor changes the encoding of the XML or your zipper creates a file that is not exactly compatible with Excel.

Perhaps there is a dependency on another file in the archive that has to be changed also.
You could try changing the connection within Excel and checking which files in the archive changed after saving.